I am sending you a beautiful writing by Fr. Jerry, posted on our parish bulletin for Pentecost Sunday, after attending the regional Diaconia.
Raffaella

Dear Friends in Christ:
Come Holy Spirit!!! In celebrating “Pentecost Sunday”, we are awakened to ask ourselves about the presence of the Spirit in the life of the Church and in our own experience of being alive and attentive to the breath of the Spirit of Jesus. Now, you might easily conclude that I am moving into a theological description of the Holy Spirit, but honestly, I am more interested in your experience of being alive in the Church as you are embraced/provoked by the Spirit. There are incredible Theologians in the life of the Church that are very capable of a theological study/ proposal of the Holy Spirit, and I am not one of them, but we need their gift and scholarly work and writings, which is a treasure in our Catholic tradition. I love the Church/Christ and we must ask ourselves in a very serious manner, what does this mean? What is your perception of the Church? And in a particular way, what is your perception of our parish community as a Church? It is a privilege to serve as your Pastor, with all of my limitations, which you know so well, but the Spirit is moving in our companionship and we need to pay attention.
Our baptismal belonging unfolds in time. We were grasped, taken ahold of, and seized in the waters of baptism, which is in strong contrast to a “sociological gathering” for the sake of inviting family, friends and following the rules. It is clear that in our families we need rules/norms/laws and they are important and give some order to living life, but our belonging to Christ in the family of the Church, as well as our own families, has a cry to go beyond the structured lesson of a safe place and moves to the risk of our hearts longing for a place where life is generated.

This longing to be generated and transformed is not tied to a scheme or plan by our own efforts as this will not move us to follow. But a recognition of the Spirit that moves us and draws us in is an opportunity to be changed through the surprise of recognizing a fascinating Presence. This is a Presence that takes you by the hand and leads you where you don’t necessarily know in light of clinging to security, but the risk of knowing that the One who grasped you in the Baptismal waters of Dying and Rising is leading you from a “safe place” to the Mystery of surprise. We have this time in front of us and the purpose of this time is to grasp what has already been given to you/us, the unfolding of our belonging.

When we arrive at our Church, our presumption might be that the Spirit of Christ will meet us in the people we know so well and have stayed with for a long time, but this is a scheme that does not hold the promise we are looking for now. The true risk of belonging is to recognize that the preference also comes from outside the circle of my friends and pulls me out of myself into a world that I don’t necessarily know. This is not about the people I like as the preference of Jesus embracing me, but it is more about the preference Christ has for me in meeting, taking a risk to be surprised by faces that I never knew, but they move me beyond my safe place of being satisfied.

How might you be called to allow someone to take you by the hand, in the Spirit of Jesus, and lead you to risk volunteering, the risk of welcoming someone, the risk of recognizing that you become your true self as you are reached from outside a safe place.

Fr. Jerry Mahon, Minnesota, USA